>> cbs news election night coverage continues. here again is scott pelley. >> the polls have just closed in three more states in this presidential election including the swing state, everybody will be watching tonight the state of ohio and another swing state, north carolina. no projections in either of those states or in virginia yet. another big battleground state, but let's look at the polls that the presidential race map as it stands right now. the state that you see in blue, the state of vermont, is the president's first win today. mitt romney, we project, will be the winner in indiana, kentucky, and in west virginia. the states that you see in

white are states where the polls had now closed, but we do not yet have enough information on which to base a projection. as we were saying, mitt romney has just picked up the state of west virginia. now, you may be looking at this and saying, wait a minute, that shows us that none of the vote has been counted. how can you say that mitt romney has won west virginia? well, all of our cbs news projections tonight will be based on the vote that has been counted and also our exit polling. we have been talking to voters in all of these states all day long as they've left the polling places and based on that exit poll information, we will project winners in these states and we will do so only when we have complete confidence in that projection. now let's look at that battleground states that we keep referring to tonight. these are the states that could go either way. these are the states that are going to tip the balance

tonight for one candidate or the other. the polls have closed in a few of them, but many are still voting. in the state of virginia, we do not have a projection, but this is the tabulated vote as we see it so far. just 2% of the vote has been counted. mitt romney out with a lead there. this is a state that president obama won by 6% in 2008, but again, the mitt romney lead may or may not last because only 2% of the vote has been counted. bob schieffer, the other state that has just closed, the state of ohio is critical to mitt romney's hopes for winning the white house. >> absolutely. i mean, his people told me last week, yes, we could win if we lost ohio, but i think it would be a very tall hill to climb if that happened. i mean, and the only thing that we have said through this campaign season more than it's coming out to turnout, no republican has won the

presidency unless they won ohio. 18 electoral votes up there. if you say that president obama starts tonight or we think he has 237 electoral votes for sure and he'll probably get in nevada which is six votes, that brings him to 243 votes. if he picked up ohio, then he would have, i think, 261 votes. he would need only nine more votes to climb the presidency. ohio is always important, especially to republicans, i'd say, this year more important than ever. >> we've been talking to voters in all states as they've left the polls today. anthony mason is in the exiting poll information. what did the voters in ohio say? >> the battleground states. the polls have closed, all three of them still right here in the middle in the toss-up column. we want to turn our eyes to ohio and the 18 electoral votes

as we've been talking about. look in ohio, it makes up a quarter of the electorate there. john mccain and barack obama just about split this vote. romney has slightly a better advantage, but again, very close. we asked the white working class voters who's more in touch with people like you? again, tight. but asked as who would do a better job with the economy? romney has a big advantage. 53% to 44%. these are white working class voters with no college degree who earn under $50,000, but this is one reason why ohio is still a toss-up, scott. >> anthony, thank you. nora, both candidates have been carpet bombing ohio with political advertising. the president started his advertising last summer and the folks in ohio have seen nothing but it since then. >> i think carpet bombing is

the right term. people wanted their television off. it was the most spent in any campaign. the democrats spent $92 million. the republicans spent over $100 million. i mean, think about that. $200million on one state. that's how important ohio is. and you talked about it, scott. early on too in may, defining mitt romney earlier. bob touched on this too. the obama team's campaign manager, jim, developed the strategy. let's define mitt romney earlier in the campaign. so in may, they ran an ad called steel where they talked about romney's being head of bain capital and shutting down a steel plant that was in place for a hundred years. a devastating ad early on so that when mitt romney showed up at the convention, he was the first republican nominee in a long memory with upside down numbers, more negative than positive ratings. it hurt mitt romney early. >> it may turn out the auto

bailout, so helpful to workers in ohio, and that ad campaign might be the two things that do the trick for the president tonight if the president is to win. >> but what is so interesting about this, there are people in ohio who have seen more of barack obama and mitt romney this year than they've seen of their local congressmen. it's like the two of them are running for governor out there. >> john is following county by county tonight. which way is the wind blowing? >> what we don't know yet is which way the counties fill in. let's take a look at the ohio map. what we do is lay out the counties in ohio where those vote wills need to come in for the two candidates. there are three things each candidate wants to do. they want to run very well where their voters are. they want to try and hold their opponents down where their opponent is strong the swing

areas. for barack obama, the big area is cuyahoga county in cleveland in the northeastern part of the state and then for governor romney, down here in the southwestern part of the state in butler county, in warren county and claremont county, that's where governor romney has to do well. then if you look for an interesting county, hamilton county, barack obama won that, first democrat to win it in four decades. president bush had won that twice. and then next to cuyahoga county, that's one they both fight it over. that's the county that picks the president before. we'll be watching that even though it's not a big county to give an inkling of who is going to win the state. >> deen reynolds is the man in ohio. he has information about the early voting there. dean? >> reporter: next to me is john houston is informing me of what

we know. 14million people availed themselves to early voting in the last five weeks in ohio and here's something we need to understand about the tabulated vote as it comes out in ohio. not the projected returns, but the tabulated votes. the early votes will be counted first, so that means by mutual agreement, people believe that president obama won the early vote, so there will be a spike in president obama's numbers in the immediate release of these votes. the officials here and i think the campaigns agree that the separation between governor romney and the president will probably diminish as the evening goes on and then the question is whether it will diminish enough or whether the early vote has built up enough of a cushion for president obama to carry the state. >> dean, thank you. crawford has been traveling the

length and breadth of this country with mitt romney for many months now. jan, mitt romney went to ohio so many times, you could be thinking he was running for governor of ohio. >> reporter: that's right. we knew all the area codes down there. he knows the importance of ohio. today, he and his running mate were there for one last visit. governor romney made 26 visits to the state of ohio during the general election. the campaign is always seeing several keys to victory in the state and hammered them as he went there. western ohio, my campaign sources say they think his message went over well there. that's a very republican area and turnout is huge in those areas. they believe they're going to equal the '04 numbers like in 2008. they had to run up the score there because they wanted to turn the state. they think they've done that and like what they've seen in southeastern ohio. they've spent time there in coal country. he had several rallies around miners in coal country and

stretched his energy policy. they're democrats, but he thinks he can pick up the votes. columbus, cleveland, those are high numbers for the president. it's too close to call there my campaign sources say. >> jan, thank you. the president has been working ohio just as hard. it is key to the president's election tonight if he is to be reelected tonight. if he can win ohio, he can effectively block the romney campaign and nancy cortis is covering the obama campaign. you spent time in ohio as well. >> reporter: i sure did, scott. it was a perfect example. we were out five days from election day. the president spends the entire day barn storming ohio, heads to the white house to sleep and comes right back out to ohio in the morning. to give you a sense of just how much he favored this one state, he held 101 campaign rallies across the country this campaign season. 26 of them, more than a quarter, were in one state,

ohio and he wasn't just in the big cities. he went to suburbs and small towns. the main reason the obama campaign felt their chances were better in ohio than say virginia or florida was because of the auto industry. as you've mentioned before, one in eight jobs in this state are connected to the auto industry. the auto bailout is very popular. the president never missed a chance on a campaign trail in ohio to talk about how he had gotten the auto industry back on track and how governor romney opposed that bailout. >> thank you very much. we have breaking news of this moment. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of south carolina. no great surprise. mccain won that state by 9% in 2008, but we can now project that mitt romney will carry the state of south carolina. bob and nora, state of ohio again. it's so critical tonight.

it might be said that if the president wins reelection tonight, he may have won it in 2009 when he signed that auto bailout. >> it very well might be the case. i still don't understand why governor romney went to cleveland today. this is the most heavily democratic part of the country and one of the most heavily democratic counties. maybe he was just trying to tie up traffic or something to keep democrats from going to vote there, but i don't understand why that would be the place he would go on the last day. >> cleveland, of course, a heavily democratic area as bob pointed out and that northern part of the state, all the way from akron to toledo, has really benefited from the auto bailout. it cost taxpayers $80 billion. part has been repaid, but no doubt a $25 billion loss for all the taxpayers in this country but may be the best $25 billion barack obama ever spent in the state because one in eight jobs in ohio is tied to the auto industry and already

seen as anthony pointed out in the exit polls that about six out of ten voters say they liked the auto bailout. it helped them economically, so that's part of what we are watching tonight, how that state shakes out. people seemed to have liked the auto bailout obama put in place. >> it's 2% lower than the rest of the country. >> certainly feeling better in ohio. let's look at the presidential race map as it has changed over the last moment or two. the presidential race map there, we now have added south carolina to the red states. those state of thes at cbs news projects will be carried by mitt romney. president obama still with the single state of vermont, but of course, a very long way to go. mitt romney with 33 electoral votes on the way to 270. president obama with three electoral votes and of course, a lot of big states have yet to weigh in. let's also have a look at the popular vote as it's being counted now. we're going to show you this all evening long from time to

time. these are the actual number of votes that have been counted across the country. mr. romney slightly ahead at this early stage with just over 2 million votes and the president just under 2 million votes, but of course, the popular vote, though interesting, will not mean a thing tonight. it is all about the electoral vote and the effort to get to 270. cbs coverage of america's 57th presidential election will continue in a moment. >> pelley: welcome back to

election night on cbs. let us catch you up right now very latest information we have on the presidential race. this is the national race map as you can see the states in red are the states that cbs news projects for governor romney. the state in blue vermont, the state that we are projecting at this point for president obama. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed but we just don't have enough information yet in order to make a projection. and the rest of the states in gray are those states where americans are still voting.

let's have a look at the critical swing state of virginia. again, not nearly enough information to make a projection but this is the tabulated vote. 6% of the vote in right now, and you can see mitt romney has stepped out to a sizeable lead here but it's very early yet, just 6% of the vote has been counted in virginia. we have with us now the republican governor of virginia, bob mcdonald. governor, good of you to be with us tonight. thank you very very much. >> hi, scott. >> pelley: how do you see things in terms of the turnout there in virginia so far. >> it's extraordinary, scott. from what i've seen and a lot of the precincts, this will exceed the 2008 turnout which was significant. in some areas 75, 80% n fact even though the polls closed at 7:00 we've still got people standing in line right now that are still waiting to cast their vote because the law is if you're in line at 7:00 you can

vote. we knew it was going to be a very close election. it will be a while before we make any predictions here in virginia. i think governor romney will win in a close election here based on what i've seen but it's going to be an hour or two before we have a good sign. >> pelley: do you have any sense whether governor romney is winning in those key counties he will have to pick up in order to carry your state? >> i hate to play the role of public depth but -- pundit but looking at the absentee numbers we're doing better than expected in some of those areas and down a little in the absentee precincts the president had done well on in 2008. there's so few really bell weather prevents in right now. the bell weather precincts, there are people standing in line voting. scott, it's too early to call. we thought it was about even going in but the enthusiasm gap was on the republican side. and the turnout to vote it was about even that means we win. that's what i'm expecting and i think it's an opportunity and

energy message is what's going to carry the day here but it will be an hour or two before we know what's going on. >> pelley: virginia used to be reliably republican. you're a republican governor. i wonder why you think it's so close tonight. >> well, it was reliably republican for 40 years for the presidency. the president won by 7 points four years ago ran a great campaign. but at the governor level, at the state house level it's been back and forth for that same 40 or 45 years. five republican, five democrat governors. so this isn't saying the people will vote the person and the issue not the party. and we're just hoping this is the year that the romney message of jobs and opportunity and debt reduction and dmer energy independence with one people will gravitate to. >> pelley: thank you governor for being with us. we've been talking to virginians as they left the polls in the commonwealth all day long. anthony mason has more information on what they've been

telling us. anthony. >> in virginia 13 electoral votes is a state that president obama won four years ago and sizeably by 7 percentage points. 43-46%. one reason was his strength among women four years ago. president obama took women by 53-46% over john mccain. his lead among women is holding up this time around. it's anywhere hold but he's still up. where things have changed are among men. obama won men 51-47%. this time around governor romney is winning. one reason things have changed we asked men who would do a better job on the economy and overwhelming there 60-38% they mixed governor romney. women think president obama will do a better job on the economy. one reason why virginia who went for obama four years ago is still a toss up at this hour.

>> pelley: one of the reason virginia's been changing is because the northern part of the state there's been a lot of population growth especially among liberal democrats. and i wonder, john dickerson, you have spent a lot of time back and forth across the whole state of virginia. what have you seen. >> one of the big issues in virginia, we'll talk a lot about the state but one of the big issues are the defense cuts that are coming pop as a part of the budget -- come pop as a part of the budget deal. this affects two of the key swing areas in virginia. in northern virginia people work at the pentagon, they are contractors up there. in the hampton roads area down in the southeast portion. there's a romney rally in chesapeake which is a county that president obama won last time with governor bush won it once and then again as president bush he was re-elected at chesapeake county. at this rally i spoke to people as they walked out. they were talking about the

defense cuts, taking jobs away from them and hurting the local economy. almost half of the economy is based on military spending. they call it the little pentagon. that area and in northern virginia, the issue of those defense cuts is really on people's minds. >> pelley: the defense industry in virginia and the government industry in virginia has kept the unemployment rate there pretty low, about 5.9%. >> yes. it was interesting hearing governor macdonald. the reason he can't make any predictions yet, we know there's a big turnout everywhere, but the vote in virginia is pretty much specific where it comes from. barack obama has got to do really well in northern virginia. that's the suburbs around washington. on the other hand, the big strength for governor romney is down in coal country, down in southeastern virginia. then governor romney probably has a better chance around norfolk because of those defense issues down there that you just

heard john dickerson talk about. so when we get a better feel as to where most of this vote is turning how the, we'll have a better feel as to whose actually ahead. >> pelley: nora, this gives canada them alot of confidence. >> virginia is key. they feel good about virginia because of that heavy turnout. those exit polls we talked about 52% of the electorate is female. it was actually 54% in 2008. these numbers can change a little bit but suggest the female vote is down a little bit. and one of the toughest fights we saw over women voters was actually in virginia. the after that debate where there was that discussion about binders full of women, romney immediately went on the air in virginia with an ad saying that he is for contraception and then obama came back with another ad contradicting that sniesmght thank yo.>> pelley: thank you .

you're watching election news coverage 2012. >> thanks for joining us. i'm derek mcginty. >> i'm amina. we're told anybody in line when the polls close will get to cast their ballots. let's start with an update from peggy fox in richmond. peggy? >> reporter: we understand that the state board of elections have now put a hold on this because people are still standing in line. we have state democratic chair. a small percentage of voters. >> i don't think you can draw any conclusions from the small

number of people because people are in line to vote and i tell people to stay in line as long as you're in line, you can cast your ballot at this point. >> reporter: do you think we're going to surpass turnout numbers from '08? >> three out of four virginiaians voted. looks like we'll have that this time. >> reporter: how does that affect the chances? >> we feel higher turnout, the better chances we are both for the president and campaign. >> reporter: and northern virginia vote? it specifically, what does that mean? >> high turnout in north virginia typically means the stronger turnout for the democrats. that was all a push all along for the turnout and looks like we'll achieve the turnout. i'm proud of virginia tonight. >> reporter: we'll be here and stay tuned. talk to you a little bit later. thank you so much, brian. back to you guys in the studio. >> thank you. three out of four, that's 75%. that's huge. >> that was. let's go to maryland where voters in the area choose one

senator, five members of the house and decide five statewide referendums. >> reporter: live at the national harbor with the latest on that, bruce? >> yeah, derek and anita. one of the most fiercely contested issue is this question seven about expanded gambling in the state of maryland. they are hoping to hold a victory party here at national harbor. this is where they are hoping to bill if the voters give them a nod, $800 million destination resort casino. the last time gambling went to maryland voters, they approved it by a huge margin, 58%, but it's much closer now according to the latest polls that we have seen. maryland voters basically split right down the middle. and when we went out and talked to voters at the polls today, they -- some of them said they didn't know what to do. i think a lot of them are disappointed more revenue didn't come in from the

ballots. and said she didn't decide until she went in and voted. derek and anita? >> thank you, bruce leshan. several board of education seats. >> they're also being asked to address three ballot questions including one that would allow the council to remove for poor conduct and bar those convicted of felonies from holding seats on the council or ever becoming mayor. >> you can get your election results directly on to your phone. all you have to do is text "election9" the number 25543. you can also follow us on twitter at @wusa9. we'll be back in half an hour with the latest results. i believe they'll begin to release the results at the 8:00 hour. we'll have more for you in just minutes. stay with us.

>> this has been a 9news now campaign 2012 campaign update. >> pelley: the polls are now

closed in half the states but there's still time to vote in the other half. as america elects a president tonight. five of the nine swing states are now closed, including the two biggest, florida and ohio. but no projection yet in any of the swing states. mitt romney has a small lead over president obama in the electoral vote count but both are still a very long way to go from the winning number of 270. this is the presidential race as we have it at this moment. the stes in blue are those that cbs news projects for

president obama, those in red the states that cbs news projects for mitt romney. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed. but we do not have enough information yet to make a projection. the states in gray of course are those where the voting continues. let's have a look at a few of the places where the president is winning. cbs news projects that president obama will carry his home state, the state of illinois, a state that he won in 2008 by 25%. cbs news projects that the president will carry the state of massachusetts. now this is governor romney's home state. of course this is the state where mr. romney was governor from 2003 to 2007, but its a deep blue democratic state so no great surprise that the president has carried massachusetts. cbs news projects that the president will also carry the state of maryland. and the state of connecticut.

cbs news projects the president will carry the state of maine and the state of rode island. we're also projecting that the president will be the winner in delaware. no great surprise, he won by 25% there in the last election, and we project that the president will also carry the district of columbia. now let's look at a few of the places where governor romney is winning. cba news projects he will carry the state of tennessee. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of alabama. no surprise. we project that he will carry the sooner state oklahoma. cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of mississippi. now before we go on from the mississippi graphic let me repeat to you one thing we mentioned before and that is how do we know that they will carry these states when so little of the vote has been counted so far. well, our projections are based on the vote that's been counted plus the exit polling that we have done in these states all day long. talking to the voters in both

states. based on that information when we are absolutely confident we'll make the cbs news projection of the state that each candidate has won. and we will break in with that breaking news every time we make a new projection. we'll interrupt whatever we're talking about to bring you the very latest information. let's have a look at the battle ground states now. these are the nine states where the vote could go either way. these are the states that both the president and governor romney been counting on to tip the election in their favor. we do not have enough information to poll any of these states yet but let's look at the tect hated vote in some of them. this is in ohio, 18 electorate votes that could be at the end of the day that ohio tips the balance for one candidate or the other. just 7% of the vote has been counted so far, and you can see that president obama is out with an early lead but a very long

way to go yet. back in 2008, president obama carried the state by 5%. let's have a look at north carolina. 23% of the vote has been counted there and look at that. it doesn't get a whole lot closer than that. president obama carried north carolina in the last election ca >> president obama carried north carolina in the last election, but he carried it. so it could not have been any closer then and tonight it's going to be very close as well. state of virginia both men are counting on virginia to help them build to that 270 electoral votes that they need to win. this is the tabulated vote as it's being counted at this moment. just 12% in at this point. and you can see that mitt romney is out to an early lead but still a very long way yet to go. bob schieffer, one of the states that will tip the balance for one of these machine tonight is the state of florida. the stakes could not be higher

there. >> here is some good news for mitt romney. a fourth of the vote in florida are seniors. and mitt romney is winning the senior vote 58-42%. what that suggests is that the democrats effort to convince senior citizens that romney was basically going to take away their medicare, that does not seem to be bothering the seniors all that much. he's going really heavily. on the other hand, 55 percent poafortofthe vote down there arn and president obama is leading that 53-46%. good news for both sides but that's really significant that seniors are going overwhelmingly. now this is the first wave of the exit poll but they seem to be going overwhelming for mitt romney in florida. >> pelley: now john dickerson is following the states for us and he's trying to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing in these states that are too

close to call. john has gotten it down to the county by county vote in florida. john, what are you seeing. >> well in florida, scott, when i was down there reporting a democratic strategist said the way to think about florida is it's three different states and two different countries. let's start with the three different states. republicans do well in the northern part all the way to duvall county where jacksonville is. that's where mitt romney has to do well tonight. democrats do well here in miami-dade in the southeastern part of the state. then they fight over the i-4 corridor from tampa to or alan development the two countries are the cubans and the non-cuban hispanic. there are now more non-cuban hispanics in florida than cubans and many of them are in the orlando area in orange county. that's the map in florida now and we'll be look to go see how the two men do. >> pelley: thank you very much. elaine quijano is on the i-4

corridor john was talking about. elaine. >> scott we're at a watch party at the university of south florida in tampa and this county, hillsborough county, since 1960 voters have picked the winning presidential candidate in every election except for 1992 when they chose george h.w. bush. it's the start of the i-4 corridor which stretches across central florida, you cross the state, all the way to daytona beach. more than half of florida's population actually lives in that area including many undecided voters. there are a number of key groups as well that could determine what happens in this state. florida has the highest percentage of seniors in the country, from 17% of the population, hispanics in ethnically diverse groups here in florida make up about 22% of the population. now as for the polls, there have been some reports of very long

lines, particularly in miami-dade county. people waiting upwards of three hours to vote. however, overall, scott, we have been talking to both state and county elections officials. they tell us there have not been any major problems at the polls. >> pelley: thanks, elaine. nora o'donnell, cuban americans in the miami area in florida have long been reliably republican but the hispanic population of florida has been changing a great deal. >> it has been changing, a lot of puerto ricans along that i-4 corridor and orlando as well so that has changed the hispanic make up of florida which in most parts of the countries goes overwhelmingly for democrats. but the cuban vote generally goes for the republicans. i want to show you something too. if you look at hispanic population growth there you see it was just 16.8% in 2000. now it's 22.9% in 2011. hispanics are the fastest growing minority in this

country. they are going to be a key story at the end of the night. >> pelley: about four million more hispanic register voters in this election than there were in 2008. anthony mason has been looking at our exit polling information and he's getting a sense of which way the wind is blowing in one of these key swing states. anthony, what do you see snierks scot.>> all five of them still r toss up column. we wanted to take a look at new hampshire though and it's for electoral votes. critical in new hampshire. independentants make up 30% of the electorate but it's more than two of the each major parties. four years ago barack obama overwhelmingly won independents but his margin has narrowed. that's why we have new hampshire still in the toss up column,

scott. >> pelley: now the other key battle of the evening, battle for the senate for the republicans to take back control of the senate, they need to end this night with four more seats than they started with. and we're able to make a call right now on one of those senate seats in the state of maine. we, cbs news is projecting that angus king will be the winner in the state of maine. angus king is an independent. neither democratic nor republican and he has not told us yet which side he is going to align himself with. the former governor, who is now going to occupy the open seat, owe limb yeaolympia snowe is rem that seat so angus king will be taking that seat. byron pitts is keeping up with the campaigns in the senate and the house for us. byron. >> scott, it's very likely that

angus king could be a king maker once he gets to washington. he's the independent scott as you said. you can see his gold chair there. though he hasn't said which side he'll caucus with, both parties believe there's a good chance he will caucus with democrats. in maine it was a three person race between the former two-time governor of maine angus king who won and defeated cynthia king and republican state treasurer charlie summers. people look at our map for a second. we're talking to republicans just a little while ago this evening and had h they tell us y have to win one of the four seats on the east coast. they basically consider maine a loss. the belief is the king may caucus with the democrats. that leaves them with massachusetts, connecticut and virginia. in virginia republicans tell us just like the democrats, they have to do well with women voters. and according to the latest cbs news exit poll, independent women favor george alan 53% to 46% for tim kaine. scott, the senate race in virginia like the presidential

race is very very tight at this hour. >> pelley: byron, thanks very much. let's have a look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. this is the number of electoral votes that president obama and governor romney have at the moment. president obama has 64, mitt romney with 82. 270 electoral votes are needed to win. the states in red are those that cbs news projects will be carried by mitt romney, the states in blue are the states that we projected to be carried by the president. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed but we do not have enough information yet on which candidate is likely to win those states. but the moment we do, no matter what wire doin we're doing in os tonight on election night, we will break in with a bulletin every time we project a new state for one candidate or the other. the states in gray are those states where americans are still

voting tonight. we'll be back with more election coverage in just a moment.

>> pelley: breaking news at the moment, cbs news projects that senator bill nelson is the winner in florida of the senate seat there. the battle for the senate is one of the themes of the night and we are projecting that the democrat bill nelson will keep the seat there in florida. let's have a quick look at the presidential race now. as we have it at the moment. these are the electoral votes that president obama and mitt romney have compiled so far. what's needed to win of course is 270. so it's early yet. the red states for romney, the blue states for obama.

the white states are those states where we don't have enough information to make a call. the rest of the states are those where our americans are still voting. john dickerson has been working on the various ways that each candidate can win the election tonight to get to the 270 votes. john, explain it to us. >> well, we haven't had any of those battle ground states come in yet. so the map is still where we saw it before. we've got governor romney at 191 and president obama at 236. if we just look at florida if that were to go to president obama he would just need to win one other state. so that shrinks of the total possible combination of states, nine battle ground states total possible combination there are 431 combinations for president obama because he starts with that early lead in states he's likely to get. there are just 76 combinations

for governor romney. so if the president were to win florida that would shrink it down to one route to the presidency for governor romney he would have to win everything else. >> pelley: jock, thank you ver -- john,thank you very much. one of the places so closely contested in these last few weeks is north carolina. let's have a quick look at the tabulated look at north carolina. these are the actual votes that have been counted so far. 30% of the vote in and it doesn't get a whole lot closer than that. a lot of those to count yet. certainly not enough information yet for us to make a projection, but north carolina, absolutely critical. >> and i think north carolina may turn out to be one of the biggest stories of the night. if what we're seeing so far from these exit polls holds up. the obama people has said from the beginning that winning north carolina would be the hardest of the battle ground states for them to win. they just weren't sure they could do it. but our exit polls are telling us that the president is getting

the same black voter turnout he got the last time around. now 23% of the vote down there in north carolina is african american. 96% of them have been supporting the president according to the exit polling that we're doing right now. if he can keep that up, he is going to win north carolina. and i got to tell you, most of us were already putting north carolina even though we called it a battle ground state, we are putting it in the romney column because we couldn't think he could create that magic again. remember back during the summer one of president obama's top aidaidstopaides told me. if this keeps up and gets a good black vote and gets a turn out of young people i will win north carolina. >> pelley: you were in north carolina a couple weeks ago for 60 minutes that struck us the

textile mills that used to employ thousands of workers being ripped apart by demolition equipment because those businesses had gone out of business. north carolina with still an unemployment rate of 10%. you would think that would be a tail wind for mitt romney. >> exactly. this day obama won by just 14,000 votes in 2008 with his smallest margin of victory in the entire country. the president and the democrats held their convention in charlesville north carolina -- in north charlotte, north carolina in order to put them back in their win column. the president hasn't been back to north carolina since the convention which led a lot of people to say north carolina is in the wrong column. i've been obsessed with north carolina for a long time and let me tell you why. in part the number that bob mentioned, 23% of african americans make up the ler electorate. that is higher than any other battle ground state that we're talking about, scott. 23%. about 20% in virginia. they ran a campaign called barber shop and beauty programs where they went into barber

shops and talked to other african americans to get to medical. that is a unique state the way they worked there. they didn't use the president there but they sent michelle obama there a lot, she was just there on monday and bill clinton was in north carolina as well. >> we must stress it's early in the evening and we're operating on early figures. but this could be the first real surprise of the evening, if the trend continues down there. >> pelley: the strength of the president in north carolina. >> yes. >> pelley: thank you, bob. let's have a quick look at the presidential race map as it stands just now. the red states we are projecting for mitt romney, the blue states for president obama. but as bob just said, it is early yet. cbs news coverage of election night, 2012, will continue? just a moment. >> pelley: breaking news, cbs

news projects that president obama will carry the state of new jersey. and its 14 electoral votes. with that let's have a look at the presidential race map. mr. obama has 78 electoral votes, mitt romney 82 electoral votes at this early stage on the way to 270 needed to win. anthony mason has been looking at some of the swing states where we don't have enough information yet to make a projection but you can tell us which way the wind is blowing in some of them. >> yes and the win has shifted somewhat of the five battle ground states where polls have closed we're now moving the first one off the toss up board, it's the state of ohio. we have our election desk has it leading to president obama. that means our election desk sees a slight advantage for president obama in ohio. let me caution you in these leaning states they could still

possibly lean back as the night goes on. we also wanted to take a look at the state of north carolina and its 15 electoral votes which you were talking about a little while ago. we asked voters in north carolina when did they decide when they were going to volt, -- vote and fully 83% fold us they decided -- fold us they decided in the past month. of those who decided in the last month, let's take a look at the early deciders first there was a narrow advantage for president obama there. 51-48%. here's what's interesting. of those who decided in the last month, scott, the tide turns the momentum shifts to governor romney. he has a 53-42 advantage among those decided in the last month in north carolina. so things swinging his way. north carolina still in the toss up category scott and again our headline is we have moved the state of ohio into the lean president obama category at this hour. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. you're watching cbs news coverage of election night 2012.

>> this is a 9news now campaign 2012 update. >> good evening and thank you for joining us for this 9 news election update. i'm anita brikman. >> folks, we are starting to get results in from the state of virginia. the big race there, of course, the u.s. senate seat. george allen versus tim kaine and 35%, allen is ahead 56% to tim kaine's 34%. >> live in richard where his supporters are starting to gather. andrea? >> reporter: in fact, i am live at the entire virginia gop

party headquarters. eric cantor, house majority leader, has taken the stage now. the crowd is really getting fired up. the state party chair said the polls have closed, the crowd cheered and better yet, the advertising has stopped. the crowd went wild. he also took some jabs at democrats. let's start with a joke, he said. one that doesn't have a punch line. joe biden. the crowd went wild. and said that the gop has worked together in this election in an unprecedented manner. one million doors have been knocked on. not just for one candidate, he said, but for the entire party. again, we'll be checking in again. eric cantor on the stage with his family now. i'm going to send it back to you live from richard. >> ann andrea, thank you. exciting stuff. challenged to retain his u.s. senate seat.

>> one of the mostly watched races, maryland. delanie. >> reporter: the stage is set for a night of celebration as far as the delaney is concerned. a few folks have been trickling in. i see about 50 folks behind the camera right now. they're very excited to see the return. for the first time in 20 years, the sixth district is highly competitive. conservative stronghold held by republican incumbent ross bartlett for the last ten terms and his eleventh term hangs in the balance because much of it has to do with the redistricting here that includes now montgomery county,

a big chunk of it anyway. german town, good and 25 seats in the u.s. house to take on the house and delaney believes he'll be one of them. we'll be along with them. back to you guys. >> all right, thank you. district six in maryland was reengineered. the redistricting and that made it more likely for roscoe bartlett who was there for i believe ten terms would lose it. >> so much to watch tonight and in virginia as well, to get instant election results of all the important races delivered right to your mobile device, text election and the number 9 to 25543. we also have realtime results on our wusa9 facebook page and wusa9.com. >> we have another update for you in half an hour and we'll be here all night folks, no

matter how long it takes the latest results and reaction from everywhere across our area. >> this has been a 9news now campaign 2012 update. pelley: breaking news of

the moment, cbs news projects that mitt romney will carry the state of arkansas. no great surprise there. john mccain won the state of arkansas by 20% in 2008. mid mid will take arkansas and that changes our presidential race map. let's have a look. president obama with 78 electoral votes and the states that you see in blue. mitt romney with 88 electoral votes, the states that you see in red. both men trying to be the first to reach 270 electoral votes.

the states in white are no, sir states where thsir -- are thosee the polls are closed and we don't have enough information yet to make a projection. states in gray are those states where americans are still voting. bob schieffer, let's have a look really quickly at the ohio tabulated board. we don't have enough information yet but have a look at this, bob. 20% of the vote has been counted. president obama out to a significant lead with 20% of the vote counted. our cbs news exit polling information, also, bob, suggests that ohio is leaning the president's way. >> well, i think in this case the economy is better in ohio than it is in some of these other battle ground states. this is where you're seeing the effect of the bailout, you're seeing unemployment at five something percent rather than the seven or pate percent in other parts of the country. the economy is playing a role in ohio. but this time it's better than

it was in other places. >> pelley: joe' ohio's reallyy of the president's plan to block mitt romney. if the president carried ohio that's a big road block to romney's route to the whitehouse. >> yes he needs to win the other battle ground states to make up for the electoral votes in ohio. here's what's interesting in ohio. we're talking about the number of jobs tied to the auto bailout. look inside our exit polls, 59ers percent say they approved of the auto bailout. 75% of those voted for obama. here's a fun fact, scott, because of the uaw agreement, chrysler, ford, gm workers all got election day off to go to the polls. >> now we're talking about american politics. >> pelley: no doubt, no doubt a big help for the president in ohio where a lot of cars and a lot of car parts are made. john dickerson has been working ohio for many months now going the length and breadth of that

state talking to voters. and tonight he has a county by county analysis for us to give us some sense of what we might expect. john. >> i would like to take you through every county but i won't do that to you. white worker class men, there's a lot of talk about them in ohio and who is going to win that vote. in a recent visit when i was there, i was talking to some republicans about belmont county, a county that went for the president, went for john kerry and it was as you can see, the president got 50% of the vote, beat john mccain there. what republicans said they saw something in early vote and were worried all these people were turning out. so they called into that county and talked to people who voted and they found out they were voting for mitt romney. look, 59%. now only 21% of the vote is in so we don't want to go overboard. we were hearing these conversations and we were hearing more broadly among blue collar man governor romney gets

59% and president obama will get 39% of the vote. we'll look at the portion of the state where mitt romney thought he could pick up a lot of voters that would traditionally vote for the democratic candidate. >> pelley: thank you, we're going to switch over to boston and speak to ed gillespie who is one of mitt romney's autopsy communicatio --top communicatio. thank you for being with us. it looks like ohio is leaning the president's way. i wonder how you see ohio. >> we feel pretty good about ohio, scott. the fact is where you look where the turnout is highest, we have great turnout in republican leading areas. we were able to shave 263,000 votes in the early vote in the absentee ballots from the advantage that president obama enjoyed over senator mccain in 2008. in the diminishment of the democrats early vote advantage, our republican intensity and what we've been seeing in the polls relative to independent

voters in ohio, we feel like it's very much in our side tonight when i look at where these votes are coming in from we also female good about thal -- feel good about the numbers in the county and precincts and need to carry with big numbers and we're doing that tonight. >> pelley: one of the swing states we do not have enough information to make a call on, terribly close at this hour is the state of virginia. the turnout there has been very heavy today, and i wonder if you think that that cuts for the president or if it's cuts for mitt romney. >> i think it's going to cut for us. that's my home state, i know it very well. again when i look at the areas that turned out. cold country that's true of ohio as well, southeast ohio, southwest virginia and southwest pennsylvania is cold country. all of that is turning out in a big big way for mitt romney we believe. when you look at virginia beach, when you look at roanoke, when you look at chest meek and other parts of the commonwealth of virginia, big number out of the northern virginia but northern virginia is a swing region. governor mcdonald carried it

very big in his governor's race, president obama carried it heavily in 2008. we feel very good about where we are in the three counties in northern virginia right now. >> pelley: ed gillespie, senior advisor to mitt romney. mr. glef los gillespie thanks fg with us. our correspondent in virginia, wyatt andrews has been looking at the vote there, and wyatt you have some new information. >> scott we just learned the state board of elections here in virginia has temporarily suspended the reporting of election results f z

there now. >> pelley: there really has been two presidential campaigns in this country. in 41 states people have watched the presidential campaign on their newscasts. in nine states, they had not been able to get away from the

relentless bombardment of presidential campaign ads. >> a lot of those ads talked about were focused on the women's vote in virginia which in 20089 was 54%, according to exit polls it's 52% which is down, which is not good news for product who usually has been among women. here's something interesting that debate we had where they talked about, mitt romney talked about having binders full of women to fulfill some jobs in the massachusetts state house. immediately after that the romney team was concerned they would have a problem with women voters so he went up with an ad in virginia that said he does not oppose contraception and abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest and to save a method' mother's life. quickly the obama team responded to the ad in virginia in which romney said he would be delighted to sign a bill banning all abortions. there were particular ads aim at women voters in virginia over the issue of abort rights.

>> pelley: thank you very much. john dickerson is watching the vote in virginia county by county. john i wonder what you're seeing. >> well one county i wanted to look at here. well first let's just look at virginia overall. what do you see, you see a lot of red. those are the recall no counties -- romney dow countiese has to do well in there. this has got a big african american population but then also a lot of suburban conservatives. 42% of the vote in. obama is winning. people who know about the state say if you win in ryko you can win the state. he's winning not over what he did with john mccain but he's doing well. we don't know about the big county for him in virginia which is fairfax but let's look at one of the counties that governor romney is doing well in. he is doing well and better than john mccain is. he has to do much better than john mccain did in all of those

red areas to match the president president's big score. >> pelley: thank you very much. news coverage of election night 2012 will return in just a moment. >> welcome back to election

night on cbs. let's catch you up right at the moment. let's look at the presidential race map. this is where things stand right now. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama with 78 at this point, mitt romney with 88. you can see their respective states in red and blue. the states in white are states where the polls have closed by and large but we do not have enough information yet in order to make a projection 9 headline of the hour is the state of virginia which was supposed to have closed its polls right now

but has been so overwhelm by turnout that they are going to extend the voting in virginia this evening so that everyone who is standing in line there will ultimately have an opportunity to vote. we have valerie jared a senior advisor to the president. ms. jared about a month ago we interviewed the president for the cbs evening news and we asked him if there's a chance he could lose this election. and he said absolutely there's a chance. i wonder when you're thinking tonight. >> tonight we're feeling terrific. it's great to be back home in chicago. we spent since that interview traveling all over our country focusing in those battle ground states and the energy on the ground is amazing. i was in florida just a few days ago over the weekend and the thousands and thousands of people who are coming outstanding in line waiting to participate in the early vote was just a strong signal of their energy and enthusiasm for

president obama. so we feel really good tonight. >> pelley: our exit polling information is telling us that ohio at this moment is leaning the president's way. not enough information to make a projection yet but leaning the president's way. what would that mean to the president's prospects tonight? >> it's key. as you know we've spent a great deal of time talking about ohio. we were just there yesterday and it's very important that we win ohio. our grassroots organization there is tremendous. we've been working for months and in some cases years as part of the obama family. what they can do is amazing. they built relationships, neighbors knocking on neighbors' doors, people making phone calls. coming in from all over to try to get out that vote. that's what i think is so unique about our campaign is it is a grassroots campaign. it's where everybody gets involved and we're so delighted to see people participating in our democracy.

>> pelley: valerie jared, senior advisor to president obama. thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> you're welcome. thank you, scott. >> pelley: let us have a look at the tabulated vote as it stands right now in the state of florida. now this is another one of those nine swing states we've been talking about tonight, but it is the largest of them all in terms of electoral votes. 29 electoral votes, 63% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that. it is difficult to get much closer than that. still have a third of the vote a little over a third of the vote yet to go but still not enough information from the lab tated vote or our exit polls in order to make a projection on florida. as we've said, we've had interviewers all over the country in every state, interviewing voters as they left the polls today. we had a treasure trove of information from those voters. anthony mason is keeping up with all of that. anthony, i wonder, what have the voters in florida been telling us. >> well scott as you mentioned,

nurse of all we've got -- first of all we've got battle ground, four of them in the toss up category. florida with its 29 electoral votes. seniors, a critical voting block in florida. they make up nearly a quarter of the electorate there. four years ago john mccain won seniors by a margin of 8 points. this time around, governor mitt romney is winning them by an even bigger margin, 16 percentage points. a lot of seniors of course vocal pa ponents of the president's awaffordable care act and some told us they would repeal some or all of it. who would do a better job on medicare, they give the advantage to romney by a 53-40% margin florida does. it's interesting if you ask people in florida under the age of 65, they think president obama will do a better job on medicare. but florida still a toss up, scott. >> pelley: thank you very much anthony. cbs election night continues in a moment.

>> this is a 9news now campaign 2012 update. >> thanks for joining us. i'm derek mcginty. >> i'm anita brikman. let's get you caught up on local results we have. democrat ben held off three challengers to hang on to his senate seat. also his district to recede in the house and chris van hullen. >> virginia won a 12 term in congress and then the race for senate is the big number between former governor george allen and tim kaine and

frankly, still too close to call that one. >> our peggy fox is with bob mcdonald. peggy? >> reporter: yes, i'm here at the democratic headquarters in richmond and the folks here are look at the numbers coming in and even though they right now show obama and allen winning, they are cautiously optimistic that those numbers will turn around in favor of obama and tim kaine. we have democratic chair brian here with us. tell us about the numbers and how you keep your fingers crossed. >> it's a fair characterization. has not reported arlington, alexandria. jim won by 5,000 votes. until i see fairfax, i feel good. we're going to win this. >> we are seeing larger numbers coming in for kaine.

kaine is looking better than obama in the polls. what does that tell you? >> tim is well known around the richmond suburbs, so he's always outperformed fellow democrats in the area. we expect him to do well. it's going to be a good night here. >> reporter: thank you very much, brian. we'll talk to you. derek, anita? >> single digit percentage points in alexandria. we'll wait those results. >> on to maryland now, we keep an eye on several ballot issues to you. >> waiting on the outcome of preston 6, the controversial marriage issue. debra? >> reporter: we know it's getting loud in here. a cheer just went up in the crowd because some preliminary results were actually just on the screen behind me and it was at 58% was for same-sex marriage marriage and 42% was against it.

people are very excited here. certainly it's a big hot button ballot question. lots to vote on. the polls closed at 8:00. it will be a while before we get all the information in, but people here are starting to get excited. we'll have a lot more for you later on. for now, live at the baltimore sound stage. back to you guys. >> all right. thank you, debra. we appreciate you sticking with us for election results. stay with us on the television but of course, we have a lot of other ways to keep you up to date. >> multiplatform kristen berset has more. >> we've got you completely covered. if you want up to date information, go to our facebook page, wusa 9 but also tweeting out results as soon as we get them and wusa9.com. the most up to date information. we're getting it out to you as soon as we get the information. if you want to come straight to your phone, you can text us

election, the number 9, 25543 and then tweet us pictures. >> thank you for joining us. we're back in half an hour with more local election results.

>> pelley: now it's getting interesting. polls are closed in 40 of the 50 states as america elects a president tonight. headline of the hour: cbs news estimates that ohio and wisconsin-- two of the key battleground states that could tip the balance-- are leaning towards president obama. but we cannot project a winner yet in thu either state or any f the five battleground states where the polls are closed. let's look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

we are now showing president obama with 123 and mitt romney with 153. mr. romney's states are shown there in red. mr. obama's in blue. the states in white are state where polls are closed but we don't have enough information to make a projection of a winner the states. the states in gray are those where people are still voting. let's have a look at some of the states where mitt romney is picking up his electoral votes the state of texas won by john mccain by 12%. i project mitt romney will win that state for the republicans in this election as well. next door, the state of louisiana we are projecting for mitt romney we are projecting mitt romney will be the winner the state of kansas. mitt romney the winner in the state of nebraska. we are projecting that mitt romney is the winner north dakota and in south dakota as well. we are projecting that mitt romney will carry the state of wyoming.

now, looking at some of the places where the president is winning. we are projecting the president will carry the state of new york and its 29 electoral votes. very large state and a very big win for the president. we are looking at michigan as well as a state that will be carried by the president. the unemployment rate is 9.3% there, but the president's auto bailout back in 2009, the auto company bailout has played very well in the state of michigan and mr. obama won it by 17% in 2008 and we are projecting that he will win it again today. now, let's have a look at the battleground states. these are the states that could go either way in this campaign and it has been fascinating tonight. breaking news of the hour. our correspondents in virginia and florida are reporting to us that even though the polls were to have closed in those states, both states have been so

overwhelmed by the turnout that they have kept the polls open in virginia and florida to allow every voter who is standing in line to go ahead and vote and, in fact, virginia has stopped reporting election results, has suspended that until all of the voters have had a chance to vote. they don't want to influence people with election returns. major stakes figuring now -- major states are still voting long after they were to have closed. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in florida right now. this is one of the -- this is the largest of all of the swing states with 29 electoral votes. this is the a tabulated vote being counted right now. the actual number of votes. have a look at that: it does not get much closer than that. more than six million votes have been counted so far and is a razor thin lead for the

president in florida with 72% of the vote counted. state of ohio is another big battleground state. 18 electoral votes, 27% of that vote in. mr. obama out to a sizable lead over mitt romney but a lot of counting to do. state of north carolina, another of the swing states. 63% of the vote has been counted. look at how close it is in north carolina. the president won north carolina in 2008 by 0.3% in virginia, 38% of the vote has been counted, mr. romney out to a lead but, again, two-thirds of the vote still yet to be counted. state of new hampshire, another wing state, it has 11% of the vote counted so far and president obama out to an early lead with a long way to go in the counting in new hampshire.

anthony mason has been keeping up with the exit polling information. we've been talking to folks leaving the polls all day long in these states, anthony. tell us which way these states seem to be leaning. >> scott, as you mentioned, seven of the nine battleground states where polls have closed now, we've moved another state, the state of wisconsin and its ten electoral votes over into the lean obama column alongside ohio. this means we feel president obama has slight leads in both of those states and a caution they could still lean back. but the advantage to obama there. let's look at wisconsin. one reason why we have a wisconsin leaning to obama are young voters who make up about 20% of the electorate in wisconsin. this is a group that president obama won handily four years ago. almost 2-1. 64% to 35%. he's ahead again this time around. not quite as strongly but still with a sizable majority. those young voters told us overwhelmingly they are satisfied with the obama administration. 71% said they were satisfied. who do they blame for the state

of the economy? well, number one, former president obama. 59% told us they put him at the top of the list and pointed the finger at him for the blame. but the state of wisconsin, the we have them leaning towards president obama, young voters the reason why, scott. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. the strategy tonight as you know is to put together enough states to get to 270 electoral votes. john dickerson has been doing the math for us and has a lesson on how you reach 270. john? >> scott, let's embrace for moment the obama fantasy which is that we've put ohio and wisconsin into the lean category, we haven't gone more than, that but they would like those two states to go to president obama. so let's imagine just for a moment that they did. if wisconsin went to president obama, mitt romney's chances using those nine battleground state, he has 76 chances, they would shrink to 24 chances. if the president then got ohio,

mitt romney's chances would shrink down to one. he would have to win every other state, virginia, north carolina, new hampshire, nevada, iowa, florida, colorado. only then if he won every remaining state would he surpass that 270 mark. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. norah, wisconsin, not enough information to make a call. this is where mitt romney found his running mate in paul ryan. thought that would do the trick. it hasn't yet. >> it hasn't done the trick. but this is a state that hasn't gone republican since 1984 when ronald reagan won their handily. in 2004, george w. bush did try and turn wisconsin republican, he almost did it. it has been democrat for obama in the l.a.x. election by 14 points. but republicans wanted to make wisconsin part of the battleground as a fail safe against ohio.

>> that was not really a battleground state for all practical purposes until governor romney put paul ryan on to the ticket and this moved it into the uncertain column but i think it would be a real surprise to most observers, independent observers if somehow mitt romney won that state. it's just a democratic state. what has it gone last six presidential elections democrats have won out there. >> pelley: and paul ryan's not particularly well known throughout the state. he's a congressman from the first congressional district and beyond that the folks in wisconsin don't know him well. >> that's the fate of all congressmen. nobody in houston knows who the congressman from amarillo is. (laughter) >> pelley: we were telling you just a moment ago that something unusual has happened this evening. the polls were supposed to be closed the polls are staying open past closing time until

everybody who's in line has had a chance to vote. wyatt andrews broke the news in virginia. here just a few moments ago and i wanted to go back to wyatt and ask him about developments there. wyatt? >> scott, we have just now heard from the obama cam main voting has resumed -- sorry, the reporting of election results has resumed in virginia. it was suspended for about an hour and a half here because of the thousands of people still in line waiting. and the rules in virginia, if you are in line at 9:00 you get to vote no matter how long it takes, state officials told me earlier today. i'm still told, though, that there are long lines in northern virginia, in richmond and in the wood bridge area 20 miles south of washington, d.c. again, scott, apparently volting results -- reporting has resumed in virginia after around an hour and a half suspension. that's still -- that still doesn't mean -- still means the state will probably take a very long time to report the results

given that 90 minute suspension. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you. let's have a look at what those results are at the moment. this is the virginia tabulated vote. as wyatt just reported, virginia is reporting its vote again 41% of that vote has been counted. mitt romney out to an early lead and yet a lot of counting to do yet. not enough information from our exit polls in order to make a projection in virginia. a similar situation has happened in florida and our elaine quijano is at a polling place there. elaine? >> scott, we're at a watch party here at the university of south florida and tampa and what i can tell you that we've had a lot of reports of some very long wait times for voters. particularly in the miami-dade county area voters waiting upwards of three hours to vote. now it's important to note that the reason for that elections officials say is because there's a very long ballot this year

here is the hillsboro county ballot. it is six pages long. there are a number of amendments, as well as county questions that voters in florida are deciding so that's one of the reasons why it's taken so long for voters to go ahead and cast their ballots. now, all day long as well officials with the secretary of state's office here in florida have emphasized to us that any voters who are in line as of 7:00 p.m. will, in fact, be allowed to cast their votes but that's certainly something they have seen here in the state of florida, some very long lines throughout the day. >> pelley: well, dade county obama country, lain. and thank you very much for that. let's have a quick look at the florida tabulated vote as it stands right now. state of florida has 76% of the vote that has been counted and have a look at that.

50-50. >> have we ever had a close election in florida before? (laughter) >> pelley: i know florida is just that way. but look at that, almost seven million votes cast. it's 50-50, folks, with 76% of the vote counted. so i think florida may be keeping us up late tonight. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. ♪

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action in the house and senate races tonight. byron? >> well, scott, the magic number for republicans in the house tonight was 218 and cbs news projects they will get to 218 and keep control of the house of representatives that's good news for stprous john boehner. more than likely he will keep his job. as for the democratic minority leader nancy pelosi, talk will begin tonight whether or not she should be replaced because she promised to win back control of the house for democrats and it looks like she will fail in that task this evening. at the end of the night, this was probably a status quo election in the house of representatives. this congress has the lowest approval rating ever measure. it was down to 9%, recently it boosted up to 15% but keep in mind, the congress have been out of session since september. on average, incumbents have won reelection in congress nearly 94% of the time.

even in 2010, when the tea party picked up seats, even then 5% of the time incumbents won reelection. so, scott, it looks like that trend will continue tonight and at this point it looks like cbs news has projected that republicans will keep control of the house of representatives. they will get to that magic number of 218. scott? >> reporter: byron, thank you very much. breaking news, cbs news now projects that president obama will carry the state of pennsylvania. this is a major win for the president on the way to 270 electoral votes if he's able to get there tonight. pennsylvania, bob schieffer, for president obama certainly good news for them. >> oh, absolutely. and this was a democratic state for a long, long time. at the end the romney people told us they thought they might have a chance. i think it was really a hail

mary mass that they threw. they did put money in there as they put money into minnesota but i think this was a long, long shot to think mitt romney was going to carry pennsylvania. >> on that point, mitt romney was in pennsylvania today, he was in pittsburgh today trying to make a play for pennsylvania, a state where democrats have over a million voter registration advantage. they tried to make a late play for it, it didn't pay off, it makes it more important that mitt romney wins ohio tonight. >> pelley: nancy cordes is in chicago with the obama campaign. how are they taking this news? >> scott, obama campaign officials said all along they never thought pennsylvania was in play. they acknowledged there was natural tightening in the polls but they have carried this blue state for so long and they said they didn't see anything in their internal polling that suggested as the romney camp was arguing that the romney team ever had a shot there. however, they did send former president bill clinton to four

cities in pennsylvania yesterday, it showed they were trying to blunt some of romney's momentum in that state. president clinton very popular in pennsylvania so that's where he spent his final day of campaigning. but this is a big relief for the obama campaign. there were several light blue states, as they put it. : michigan, minnesota and pennsylvania principally where the romney campaign argued that things were tightening and looking up for them in these final days. it now appears at least one of those light blue states is saying in the blue column. >> this is one of those states that david axelrod, the president's campaign manager, said he would shave his mustache if they lost there. (laughter) so i kind of have a feeling they thought they were going to win. >> pelley: thought they were going to win but the romney campaign sure made a run at in the these last several days and weeks. let's look at the presidential race board as it stands right now now that president obama has moved into president obama's column. 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. you see the president now with

143 and mitt romney with 153. you see the president's states in blue, mr. romney's in red. the states in white are those states where the polls have closed and we just do not have enough information to make a projection yet. the states in gray are the states that are still voting. cbs news coverage of this fascinating election night 2012 continues in a moment.

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red. the white states we don't have enough information yet in order to make a projection in those states. the gray states are still voting. the battleground states tonight, nine states that could go either way, very likely to tip the balance for one candidate or the other tonight. we have exit polling information from all of those states. anthony mason has been looking at that tonight to try to give us a sense of which way the wind is blowing. anthony? >> pelley.>> scott, the electios moving the state of new hampshire and its four electoral votes into the "lean obama" column joining ohio and wisconsin there. that means in the view of our election desk president obama has a slight advantage in those state bus as we've been cautioning all night long there's still the possibility it could lean back. but we wanted to turn our attention to the state of colorado and its nine electoral votes. the battleground state still a tossup. immigration a very big issue in colorado. and we asked voters in our exit poll in colorado whether they

favored giving a chance for legal status to illegal immigrants. and nearly two-thirds, 64%, told us they did. among those voters, president obama is winning handily tonight. he's taking 59% of those who had -- who are in favor of giving some kind of chance at legal status. it's also helping him among hispanic voters in colorado who make up 11% of the electorate there. four years ago the president took 61% of the hispanic vote in colorado. this time around look what's happening. he's winning three quarters of the hispanic vote, scott. colorado still a tossup. again, our headline, we have moved the state of new hampshire, its four electoral votes, into the lean obama column. >> pelley: anthony, thank you. let's have a look at the state of colorado tabulated vote as it's being counted right now. 32% of the vote has been counted. president obama out to an early lead but still a lot of counting to go. norah, colorado, very important to both candidates. >> in fact, the growing hispanic population in colorado, like

some other states like florida and nevada, make it very popular in terms of where that vote would be and have them courting the hispanic vote. i just want to show you something because both sides tried to court the hispanic vote. obama outspent romney 2-1 in terms of advertising on spanish language televisions. he even taped this ad where he spoke the whole thing in spanish. listen. (president speaking spanish) >> never heard the president speak spanish before. >> pelley: sounded like his voice. i think that may have been him. cbs news coverage of campaign twelve will continue in -- 2012 will continue in just a moment.

11/6/12 this is a 9news now campaign 2012 update. >> good evening once again. thank you for joining us for our 9news election update. >> of course we are closely following the results in virginia where the race between george allen and tim kaine is just as tight as cannot. george allen is up 51% to 49% with about 66%. two thirds of the vote counted. it is tightened significantly since the last time we did this. >> live at virginia republican headquarters in richmond. andrea? >> reporter: well, i can barely hear you but i am joined by

governor bob mcdonald and looks like the crowd is going wild. appears to be leaning toward romney. >> that's the good news. we thought there were 7 or 8 states that maybe 5 or 7% of the vote was going to control who was the next president. virginia is one. i think with the enthusiasm created by walker and ryan we felt good. my job is virginia. we've done a lot. >> let me ask you about that ticket. if you were on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate, would the party be even closer to victory? >> no. heck no. paul ryan is a brilliant choice. nobody knows the problems and the fiscal problems better than paul ryan. i think the message on job creation, economic development, energy independence was the right message for virginia. >> in 2000, it was florida, florida, florida. is it going to be virginia, virginia, virginia tonight? >> the turn out has been so

incredible. people are exercising constitutional rights. at this hour we have people voting. and places like virginia beach, chesapeake and prince william. the lines were so long at 7:00. democracy is working and i hope it works in our favor. >> like you, i've been all over the state talking to voters and there is extraordinary fatigue on all the advertising and the expenditures. has this gone out of control? the cost of the senate race? >> i don't think. we spend more on advertising for consumer products by far than we spend on the commander-in-chief. this is the new normal. couple billion dollars of expenditures. couple hundred million of that in virginia. there's a lot at stake. biggest differences between the candidates probably since regan and carter. it's important. >> thank you so much for your time. back to you. >> all right. we'll be checking in again and watching virginia closely like everybody else.

>> and watching maryland closely as well. ben carden has easily won re-election defeating three challengers. >> turning to maryland's third congressional district. john has also won another term. >> and the closely watched reshuffled district 6 john delaney has taken a lead. reengineered by democrats to work in his favor. >> that is also an issue on the ballot of whether that redistricting holds. for election information, follow us on twitter. our political expert gary. the hash tags to watch election 2012 analysis. >> another update in a half hour and here all night long for you with the results and reaction from everywhere across our area. you can watch us to find out.

>> this has been a 9news campaign 2012 update.

>> pelley: headline of the hour in the presidential race, no projected winners yet in any of the battleground states will that will tip the balance to either president obama or mitt romney. but, cbs news estimates that three of them-- ohio, wisconsin, and new hampshire-- are leaning toward mr. obama. and we project that the president has won pennsylvania. in the electoral vote count, governor romney has a small lead. let's look at the presidential race as it stands at this moment. 270 electoral votes needed to win. president obama right now with 143, mitt romney with 153.

mr. romney's states in red, mr. obama's states in blue. the white states are states where the polls have closed and we just don't have enough information yet on which to base a projection. the states in gray are those where the voting continues. now, we've been talking all night long about the battleground states, these nine states that could go either way and will ultimately tip the balance tonight for one candidate or the other. let's have a look at the tabulated vote in those states. the largest of them all with 29 electoral votes, state of florida, 81% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that! seven million votes cast and about one thousand votes difference between the two. now, cbs news projects breaking news of the moment, president obama we project will carry the state of wisconsin.

and its ten electoral votes. let's have a look at the race map now on the presidential race. this is how it has changed. mr. obama and mr. romney now tied in the electoral vote race to 270 with wisconsin now in the president's column. so we were looking at the swing states, those battleground states that could go either way and we were looking at those tabulated votes. the state of florida, we were just showing you, is nearly tied with 282% of the vote counted. let's look at the second-largest of those swing states, the state of ohio. 36% of the vote has been counted. mr. obama out to an early lead. north carolina also very close. 75% of the vote has been counted in north carolina. a hard fought state. the unemployment rate there is

still 9.6%, well over the national average. mitt romney with a lead there in north carolina. looking at the state of virginia, 52% of the vote in virginia has been counted. mitt romney out with a lead there. we have breaking news. president obama cbs news projects will carry the state of new hampshire. this is the first of the swing states, the nine battleground states that will decide this election. this is the first one that has come through for us tonight. president obama we project will carry the state of new hampshire. let's go to the presidential race map yet again now that new hampshire is in the president's column he has 156 electoral votes to mitt romney's 153. john dickerson, our cbs news political director, is mapping

out the various ways the two candidates can get to the 270 electoral votes needed. john, what does this mean now that new hampshire has gone the president's way. >> now that we've actually called a battleground state let's step back a minute and remind ourselves of why we started at 237 electoral votes for president obama. that's tallying up the states that traditionally go for democrats. 191 electoral votes for governor romney. so now if we give the four electoral votes to president obama, that shrinking governor romney's chances to get to that 270 number from -- he had 76 chances when this began, he now has 30. if we take the states that we have said are leaning distinct from having made a call as we have in new hampshire that would be ohio, wisconsin, and then -- and that would get him to 269 which would be a tie and so the president is -- mitt romney's chances are shrinking fast.

>> pelley: john, thank you very much. two of the battleground states that are going to tip the balance tonight have now gone to the president in our cbs news projections. chip reid is in madison, wisconsin, tonight. chip? >> well, scott, there was just a big cheer that erupted at this bar/restaurant, the old-fashioned in madison, wisconsin. this is a university town in addition to being the capital of wisconsin so you get a youngish crowd, it is a stronghold for the democrats and for president obama. the obama campaign says they got a huge turnout here today. they also got a huge turnout in milwaukee. they were counting on both of those places but the republicans i -- just before we call wisconsin i was on the phone with the republicans, they said they got a huge turnout in the suburban communities around milwaukee and so they were very optimistic but obviously it wasn't big enough.

republicans thought with the combination of paul ryan and that titanic bat that will so fired up republicans earlier this year when democrats tried to remove the republican governor from office they thought those two things might give them enough of an edge to win here. both sides have massive, tens of thousands of volunteers out there getting people to the poll bus obviously for the republicans it was not enough. scott? >> pelley: chip, thank you very much. bob schieffer, norah o'donnell, if the president won florida at this point the election would be over. >> well, he could win a number of things right now and it would be over. i think what we want to emphasize, it's early but is looking much more difficult right now for mitt romney to win the presidency than it did, say, a half hour ago. >> pelley: there are only about nine combinations of states that mitt romney could win with at this point, norah. >> that's right. he needs more than just north carolina which he's leaning in at this hour. he needs florida, ohio, and other states on top of that.

now with new hampshire called and wisconsin called it's a much more narrow path to victory for romney. >> pelley: . >> and don't forget we've got ohio now leaning toward barack obama. i mean, if -- if the president wins ohio, i think it's virtually impossible for mitt romney. >> pelley: we've been talking to voters in these states all day long as they left their polling places and anthony mason has been keeping up with the exit polling information. anthony, what do the voters tell us? >> scott, let's look at our battleground board right now because we have two states that we've called here. we've moved new hampshire and wisconsin, we have projected president obama winning those two states. we have state t state of ohio as bob mentioned leaning towards president obama and there are four states still up in the tossup column with two others where we're waiting for the polls to close. but we want to look at wisconsin which we just projected for president obama and why he won there. let's look first of all, young voters, he won overwhelmingly among young voters, 60% to 36%.

they make up about 20% of the electorate in wisconsin. he also won independents narrowly, 49% to 47%. he did much better among independents in wisconsin four years ago when he took 59% but he hangs on to win them this time. finally he wins union households by two-thirds, 67% to 32%. this is also 21% of the electorate in wisconsin so a sizable voting block. this is the intkpwraoeud kwrepbts of obama's victory in wisconsin right now. scott? >> pelley: nancy cordes is with the obama campaign in chicago tonight. nancy, how are they seeing all this? >> scott, it's interesting, a few hours ago before we started seeing results i was speaking to an obama campaign official and he told me wisconsin isn't going to be as close as people think and sure enough it's one of the first states, first battleground states we're calling this evening. new hampshire more of a surprise for them that it's coming in on their side so early this evening. the key behind their victory in wisconsin besides the fact that

it typically trends democratic is the fact that the president spoke so much about manufacturing out on the campaign trail. he talked about it in his convention speech, that was no accident. those kinds of messages are targeted towards voters in wisconsin, voters in ohio where the obama campaign also feels very comfortable this evening. they say they're looking at the numbers and they won by about by about 2,000 or more voters in the early vote in ohio according to the data they are looking at. they always knew they had a big lead in ohio when it comes to early voting. republicans tend to come out in bigger numbers on election day but they that they think that's going to be a very difficult number, scott, for republicans to overcome. >> pelley: jan crawford is with the romney campaign in boston and, jan, mr. romney has about nine combinations of states that he can still rely on to win the election tonight but his options are getting narrower? >> well, certainly with the

addition of new hampshire and wisconsin now projected for the president, that will make it more difficult for romney and those were two states that he really made a play for. remember, he announced his campaign in new hampshire and held his very last rally of this campaign in new hampshire hoping he could turn that campaign to his map and then, of course, wisconsin, that was not a state that was considered optimistic shot for republicans. until he nominated paul ryan, the wisconsin boy from jaynesville. they thought they got a lot of momentum in wisconsin after that, they thought they put that state back in play and that he could have a shot to win wisconsin as well so now of course it's looking like we've said for months. it's all about ohio and the numbers there, the turnout there for republicans in ohio is very high the campaign continues to be encouraged by that. they're hoping it's off in cleveland, an area that will be very strong for the president and on early voting even though the president has the lead nancy mentioned they believe that they've closed the margins

enough that they will be able to make that turnout on election day because the turnout is so large in republican areas in the western part of the state and they think they'll have a big turnout in southeastern ohio but, of course, now the campaign's focus will be on ohio with the loss of new hampshire and wisconsin. >> pelley: we have breaking news on one of the senate races that we've been watching tonight. cbs news projects that elizabeth warren, the democrat, will pick up the senate seat in the state of massachusetts we are projecting she has defeated scott brown, the republican. you may recall that brown won the seat of ted kennedy in 2010 and has stood for reelection now and has been defeated by elizabeth warren. this is a pickup for the democrats. republicans were hoping to win four more seats than they started with to take control of the senate chamber but now the

democrats have picked up one more seat than they had at the beginning of the evening. byron pitts is following the senate races for us. byron? >> scott, this was the most closely watched senate race of the season and the second most expensive with virginia. with this pickup for democrats in the senate the window isn't closed yet for republicans but the shades come down. in massachusetts, the senate seat there goes to democrat elizabeth warren. she defeats moderate republican senator scott brown. this was always going to be a tough race for brown because of the way voters break down in massachusetts. 52% of voters in massachusetts say they're independent. 36% say they're democrats. and just 12%. a small number, say they're republicans. because of that small figure of g.o.p. voters in massachusetts, republicans told us that scott brown had to win 20% of the vote tonight in order to win. but look at our exit poll. brown only got 11% of democratic voters in massachusetts, elizabeth warren got 89%.

so the harvard law professor and former member of the obama administration has won the senate seat in massachusetts. scott, she heads to washington as the first female senator from massachusetts. she get there is in january. >> pelley: byron, thanks very much. a big pickup for the democrats, bob. >> yes, it was. and this is massachusetts reverting to form. i mean, this was ted kennedy's seat when scott brown got elected. he said no, it's th people's se. and that's right but this is a seat that's been democrat for a long, long time. i think it will be all but impossible for republicans to get control of the senate. i think it's going to stay like it is, in democratic hands. >> pelley: bob, thank you very much. we're going to catch you up on the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. president obama with 157 electoral votes, mr. romney with 153. you see there's state there is in red for romney, blue for obama the white states we don't have enough information on in order to make a projection.

the gray states are still voting. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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the newsroom a short while ago of mr. romney watching the vote returns tonight. this is in boston. he's with his grandchildren there. so this is the romney family watching the vote returns as they're coming in. we now have a new cbs news projection, cbs news is projecting that senator sherrod brown will retain his seat in the senate from the state of ohio. this is a seat the democrats had, sherrod brown will return to the senate in the state of ohio as their united states senator. there are nine battleground states tonight, we have called two of them. we have projected that two of them have gone into the column of president obama, new hampshire, and wisconsin, but that leaves the rest of the battleground states still unprojected at this point. don't have enough information in order to tell you which way they

are going. but let's have a look at the colorado tabulated vote as it stands right now. almost half of the vote has been counted. the president has a slight lead over governor romney with still more than half of our vote yet to be counted. our man in colorado is barry petersen. barry, colorado used to be a reliably republican state but not so much anymore. >> things here have changed, scott. i think you see a larger hispanic vote, about 11% this time out and you see an influx of younger people and people from california who have come here and they have changed the complexion of this state. it's now a very purple state. a third democratic, a third republican and this county where i am a third independent. we're here in arapaho which is south of denver, one of the swingiest of the swing counties. you can see behind me they're counting ballots. they're counting ballots that have already been mailed in. that's the numbers we're working on now. this is a big mail in early

vote, early state here in arapaho, county. about 68% people mailed in before voting started today. now this is a state that was concerned about voting problems but it didn't turn out that way. because so many people voted early, the polling places were able to handle people who showed up. one area where they had a 90 minute, two hour wait and they said to people look if you change precincts you can go next door and you can vote in five minutes. that said, now this state is really beginning to count the votes that were cast today. about a third of the votes. and it could be a while here in arapaho county where they are counting the votes that have come in early. they are prepared to work late into the night, scott, i am telling you, bad news for all of us. they have another shift ready to come on duty at 11:00 p.m. and count the night away. >> reporter: barry, thank you very much. i think back on that very first presidential debate it was in colorado.

that was the debate that mitt romney won, the president had done poorly and mitt romney convinced people to take a second look now they're battling it out for colorado. >> i think that was one of the shift wes saw here. we saw a shift toward barack obama after the democratic convention and after that republican convention, that sort of stop for a while and we saw it starting to shift toward mitt romney the question is was it still going up until election day or did it peak a day or two before? we haven't had much good news for governor romney in the last hour, but here is one little bit of good news on colorado. is there are 38% of the vote out there are independents and according to our exit polling governor romney is leading among independents by seven points now. >> pelley: the unemployment rate in colorado is 8%, just slightly above the national average. >> colorado is a state that has changed a lot which is why it went democratic in the last

election. there are more hispanics in that state, more college educated whites that had gone into colorado and we talked about those are coalitions of the ascendant, growing demographic groups part of obama's coalition. however, even though there was a large early vote in colorado, some 77% that turned out early-- amazing, before election day-- many people i talked to said this was going to be a good state for mitt romney. that's the one battleground state he was ahead in the early vote. >> pelley: colorado now about 21% hispanic and those votes breaking the president's way. cbs news coverage of campaign 2012 continues in just a moment.

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obama has 157, romney has 153. but look at this: this is the popular vote tonight. as it's being tabulated, mitt romney ahead in the popular vote even though he's falling behind, bob schieffer, in the electoral vote. >> yes, but the electoral vote is where it is. we thought at the beginning of the night that barack obama would win 237 electoral votes. we thought that was all but certain. he has now picked up 14 more with new hampshire and wisconsin. that puts him at 251, ohio is leaning toward obama. if ohio goes for obama he will have-- if we give him what we thought he would have at the beginning of the evening-- 269 electoral votes-- one vote short of what he needs. >> pelley: bob, thanks very much. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue after this.

this is the 9 news now campaign 2012 update. and a bit of a nail biter. >> good evening. let's bet you caught up some on some local results. frank wolf is keeping his seat and jerry conley is going keep his seat. let's look at the senate race between george allen and tim kaine. look at that, 50% to 50%. >> now, part of the reason is the number of people are now

still waiting to vote. remember, the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. in virginia but so many people were already in line, the voting is still going on. >> and deal is if you were in line at the time of closing, you get to vote. >> reporter: you know i was here this morning in virginia and did not expect to see the number of people here. look at what it looks like inside. some 5,000 people are registered to vote here and we are being told they only have six machines and they could use eight to ten of them. the last person in line, seems like he has about and hour and a half leftful they have been here up to four hours. guys, a live look right now at the outside of the school here, you can see some people coming

out now. i think about another hour and a half left. back to you. >> wow, obviously some serious questions about the voting in virginia. >> and to be the? maryland, dulaney is the winner, it could be a late night for the februaries waiting to hear the results of the ballot issue. >> now, here is question number six, that is the issue of same sex marriage. bruce is live. there could be a big winner. >> reporter: yes, i just talked to mill peterson with mgm and sunk about $40 million into the fight and he says if he gets permission he is going build a resort casino up on the hill

here. but it is going be a battle to get the voter force do that. the vote right now is really close, joust about one point against expanded gaming. about 200 votes against it out of 900,000. talk about a long night. this could be it. >> all right, five, now in washington dc, we now you want to know ant the city council seats, well, there are some ballot questions, too. >> so far, no result ifs the dc board of election action. when we get them we'll bring them to you. >> and you can track realtime results on our facebook page and that is where you can leave your comments about how you think the races are turning out. thanks for joining us. we are back in half and hour

with results.

>> . >> cbs news election night coverage continues. here again is scott pelley. >> pelley: the polls are now closed in all of the battleground states that will tip the balance tonight in the presidential race. and two of them have tipped right into president obama's column. wisconsin and new hampshire. in addition, ohio and nevada are leaning toward the president. the vote count in the biggest of the swing states, florida, is oho close. mr. obama only has to win florida now to win re-election. in the battle for the senate the republicans lose a key seat in massachusetts. we project tbeth warren has defeated the

incumbent republican scott brown in massachusetts. mitt romney has a small lead in the electoral vote count, both candidates are still far away from the 270 needed to win. let's have a look at the way the presidential vote map stands right at this moment. mr. obama with 157 electoral votes, mr. o romney with 162. mr. romney's states are in red, mr. obama's in blue. the states that are in white are those that we just do not have enough information yet in order to make a projection of a winner. the states in gray are still voting. let's have a look at some of the new states that have just been picked up by governor romney. governor romney wins in utah. no surprise there. governor romney, we also project, picks up the state of montana. now the battleground states. we started this night with nine states that were too close to call. they could go in either direction. they will certainly tip the

balance for one candidate or the other tonight. two of the battleground states have gone to president obama, new hampshire and wisconsin. the others we still do not have enough information yet in which to make a call. now we have just decided to lean the state of nevada toward president obama. that is based on our exit polling information. anthony mason is keeping up with our exit polling information as it came in from all of the states. anthony, tell us which way things are leaning. >> reporter: well, scott, let's look at the battleground board here. as you mentioned the state of nevada and its six electoral votes now moving out of the toss-up column and into the lean obama column alongside ohio, as we've been saying all night. our election desk says that means the president has a slight advantage in those states. but there's still the possibility they coleen back. nevada is particularly interesting because the unemployment rate in nevada is 11.8%, nearly 4 points

above the national average. the economy in enormous distress there and has been for some time. but when we ask voters in our exit poll who would do a better job of handling the economy, came out about even, actually. now it's interesting because among the nevada voters in our exit poll, we asked them about obama's policies and who they would favor, most said obama's policies would favor the middle class, 45%. 10% said the rich, 29% the poor. asked the same question about governor romney you get a very different response. 55% said romney's policies would favor the rich. again we have moved nevada out of the toss-up column and into the lean obama column at this hour, scott. >> pelley: thank you, anthony, nora o'donnell, nevada once republican as it could be, one of the states with the absolute worst economies in the country, what's going on there? why leaning for the president now? >> it has to do with the large hispanic population in

nevada. we saw in 2008 it was 15%, and our exit poll now show it is 18% and they are breaking overwhelmingly for obama, 68 to 25. a lot of those democratic growth in clark county in nevada, that is part of the reason that the president is doing well in the state of nevada. also another one of these states where there was a lot of early voting, 72% voted before election day. and so that's where the unions tried to turn the culinary workers union, that work in all the hotels when we visit las vegas and other places, they got those people to the polls early out. romney in order to win that state was going to have to get a heavy republican turnout on election day. >> pelley: bob, one of the swing states we haven't talked a lot about tonight is the state of iowa, what are you seeing there? >> schieffer: well, iowa is one of those states that as this race began to close, the obama people began to be more and more confident about it. they told us this week they thought they were up by 7 or

8 points. we're looking at these exit polls, 54% of the voters in iowa are women. 46% are men. women are up 19 points over governor romney. president obama is winning the women's vote in iowa. governor romney seems to be losing among all age groups except seniors. he is now tied with president obama on that. but again going back, it looks to me like now if president obama gets all of the states that we thought in the beginning of the evening he was going to win, now that he has won wisconsin and new hampshire, if the two states that are leaning to him, nevada and ohio go to president obama, he's going to be re-elected. norah? >> reporter: we have been talking about the minority vote and how it breaks overwhelmingly for the president and the white vote

usually break force mitt romney. iowa is a state very white, 93% white slowers, very few minorities in that state. and according to our exit polls obama is actually winning in that state. obama, it was his last stop, campaign stop there. we saw him crying in iowa because it was the state that launched his presidency, where he beat hillary clinton in those caucuses all the way back in 2008. >> schieffer: that's when we started taking him seriously for the first time, when we won iowa, when an african-american could go to iowa an win, people said wait a minute this guy might be somebody who's going to win. >> pelley: and the unemployment rate in iowa right now is 5.2%, way down from the national average. and the farm economy has been doing quite well. >> schieffer: the obama people were feeling very, very good about iowa all this week. >> pelley: we now have breaking news with a couple of projections in the senate races in the state of missouri. cbs news is projecting that senator claire mccass kel will hold her seat in the

state of missouri. in the state of indiana which are showing that our projection is that joe donnelly, the democrat will pick up the seat in indiana. republicans were hoping to pick up some seats tonight but so far it looks like the democrats are doing a better job of adding seats in the senate. byron pitts has been following the senate races for us, byron? >> reporter: scott, you're absolutely right. indiana, missouri are two places that the republicans thought back in january they could win easily. that's not been the case tonight. first indiana where you have congressman democrat joe donnelly defeat republican tea party-backed candidate richard murdoch. mourdock won the primary in an upset of senator rep-- republican senator richard lugar the moderate. expectations were if lugar could have won the primary he very easily would have won re-election. but mourdock won the primary. since then he has had some challenges. in a recent debate with donnelly he said if rape

leads to pregnancy, then quote, it's god's will. that comment likely hurt him with moderates and republican-- moderates and women in that state. now over in missouri republicans thought back in january this would be their easiest pick up. but tonight it looks like democrat senator claire mccasskel will win, she defeats todd aken. the republicans thought this was an easy win. but then todd akin made his comment, what he called legitimate rape. and his campaign never recovered. scott, we can look at our senate chamber again for a second. so remember republicans going into this evening needed to win four seats to take back control of the senate. so far they haven't won anywhere and the democrats have a net pickup of two. at this point it looks very, very difficult for the republicans to win control of the senate at this point, scott. >> pelley: byron, thank you very much. we have a bulletin, cbs news is projecting that mitt

romney will carry the state of missouri. this adds 10 electoral votes to his column. this is the presidential race map as it stands right now. with those ten electoral vote mrs. romney goes to 173, mr. obama to 157. reminding you, of course, that it takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. bob schieffer, interesting information on the senate races. that the democrats have been able to hang on to. >> schieffer: what is really kind of interesting about it is that when you look back at the seats that the republicans lost tonight, connecticut, linda mcmahon was the-- she basically bought herself the nomination. she spent $100 million over the last two election cycles trying to get elected and she didn't. probably if chris shays, a republican kind of a liberal republican congressman in connecticut, if he had won the nomination, he probably

would have won that seat. certainly he would have been competitive. there is no question that if dick lugar who had lost that nomination the long time senator in indiana, had he won the nomination there, it would have been a runnaway for him. he would have won and then down there in missouri you had akin who again was a very conservative on social issues candidate, a stronger republican there, might well have beaten claire mccasskel because she was very vul neverable in a state that went republican. >> pelley: a bit of the tea party hangover in those races. the tea party candidates were nominated. and ultimately-- defeated. >> schieffer: they make very good candidates in republican primaries but didn't fair that well in general elections. >> pelley: let's switch to chicago where we have the mayor of chicago rahm emmanuel and the former chief of staff for president obama, mr. mayor, thank you

very much for joining us. we have shown new hampshire and wisconsin now pick up by the president in terms of the swing states. how do you see things moving. >> well, to be blunt, i would be rather be us than them right now. there's a lot to go yet in ohio and florida, and in virginia and iowa. but in ohio and iowa come in like they're coming, i think you have a very good night for the president of the united states. as we say here in chicago, sweet home, chicago. so it will be a great night. >> pelley: mr. mayor, the turnout has been extremely heavy in a number of states, in florida in particular, and in virginia. they've had to keep the polls open past their closing time because so many people were standing in line. does that break for the president or break for mitt romney. >> let me say this, for a lot of people for the year saying the energy wasn't there for the president's voters i think they should take a step back and say why were they saying that. if anything we're seeing an intensity that's very good

for the president. and you're seeing long lines in key areas that are tle strong for the president. so i think it's a good sign, first of all, for the country overall that a lot of people decided to turn out to vote. because it's a big election. but if you look at where the votes are, there's a lot of energy on the president's side, and for everybody for the last 12 months that was saying it's not like '08, it's like '08. they're as excited today about the president as they were back there '08. and that's a very good sign i think for his presidency and the tough issues that he has to tackle in the next four years. he's got a firm hold on a part of the country that really wants to see his leadership and that he's exerted for the last four years continue down the path of policies that he has. so i think it's good. and although we have a long night to g we're going to be watching a lot for florida, virginia, ohio and iowa. >> pelley: rahm emmanuel, mayor of the city of chicago and former chief of staff to president obama. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. >> pelley: and cbs news

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so they matter most to us. if you're caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care program offers strategies that can help. >> pelley: breaking news of the hour, the cbs news election desk has decided to lean iowa in the direction of president obama. anthony mason has been following our exit polling information all night based on that exit polling information. we've decided to move iowa into the lean obama come, anthony. >> reporter: that's right, scott. iowa and it's six electoral votes comes out of the toss-up column into the lean obama column alongside ohio and nevada. as we've said all night long and in view of our election desk that means the president has the slight lead in the state. there is still the possibility it coleen back. but nevada leaning towards the president and a big reason why are women voters in iowa.

among all women the president leads 59 to 40%. he's doing even better among single women taking 71%. and he's leading among married women as well, 53 to 47%. white women, that's forecategory that across the country the president is to the doing well with. he's only getting 42% nationally among white women but he's winning them in iowa. we don't know the reason why, specifically, but he's got 58% of white women in iowa. but again, scott, our headline iowa six electoral votes now leaning to president obama. >> pelley: anthony, thank you. norah, ohio-- rather, iowa is a swing state in every sense of the word and it looks like white with swinging it toward the president tonight. >> that's exactly right. and this is a defeat for the republicans. because iowa, there is actually more registered republicans in iowa than there are democrats. there's a lot of christian evangelicals in the state of iowa. it is 93% white. but this is a state that barack obama launched his candidacy and they never stopped organizing in that

state. i mean you can look at the number of field offices. obama has 67 field offices. romney has 14. obama's people say if there was a place they were organized early and stayed t was iowa. it paid off. it's not the typical type of state that goes for barack obama. >> pelley: now john dickerson has been following the various ways each candidate can get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win. john, how have these recent changes changed the map? >> well, they've shrunk the possibility for governor romney with wisconsin and new hampshire off the map for him. now with iowa leaning, if we give that to the president and then nevada leaning and ohio leaning, that gets president obama up to 281 electoral votes. so if we add the leaning to the ones that are called, then that's it for governor romney. >> pelley: now of course we are, to emphasize we are saying that these states are leaning toward the president. the votes are still being counted.

they coleen back the other way. it's still possible. we are not making a cbs news projection on those states yet. but we will project those states based on our exit polling information and the tabulated vote at the very moment that we are able to have confidence in that projection. dean reynolds is our man in ohio, also one of the major swing states tonight, second largest of them all in terms of electoral votes. and a state that we are unable to project because we do not have enough information yet. dean? >> well, scott, we're getting some indications from the demeanor of the republicans that we've spoken to, the press secretary for the republican party here in ohio, matt henderson told thaws they are a little nervous about the results. there is-- they're still waiting for the rural

counties. but if you read between the lines of what they're saying, there does seem to be considerable anxiety about what they're seeing out there in the numbers. we talked to a high government official here in ohio who agreed with our assessment that ohio is leaning. they would have liked to have seen the early votes break a little bit more friendly to governor romney. they see that about 60% of them went to the president. they were hoping that maybe they could hold that number down to 56%. so they're not saying that ohio has been lost to governor romney but they are indicating that this is not particularly a great night for them, scott. >> pelley: dean, thank you very much. breaking news of the moment. we can now make a cbs news projection on the senate race in virginia. cbs news is projecting that timothy cane, former governor there will be the senator. he is the democrat and another democratic seat in the senate tonight.

now looking at the two largest swing states that we have not been able to make projections on yet, the state of ohio, 55% of the vote has been counted. mr. obama has a slender lead over mitt romney in ohio. a lot of counting yet to go. not enough information yet in order to make a projection. now let's look at the largest swing state of all, the state of florida, 29 electoral votes. 87% of the vote has been counted and have a look at that. 1%-- 1 percentage point between the two. if president obama wins florida at this point, the election is over. but clearly a hard fought race there in florida tonight. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment. [ female announcer ] lactaid milk is easy to digest.

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oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. >> pelley: breaking news of the hour. we told you a few minutes ago that the cbs news election desk what estimated that nevada, critical swing state, was leaning toward president obama. we are now upping the ante on that saying that it is now likely to go to president obama. the state of nevada. we're not making that projectioning yet of a winner but we believe it is likely that the president will win that state. anna western certificate in nevada tonight, anna? >> reporter: well, scott, you've seen an influx of hispanics into nevada in recent years, along with other minority group, african-americans and asians. but the latino vote is now roughly 15% of the total. and it's considered critical here. it's also part of the democratic get out the vote campaign here which has

resulted in 9 o-- 90,000 more registered democrats than republicans. we just talked to secretary of state ross miller and he expects results will start being released here in the next 20 minutes or so. he said they have had no major problems here. but he said that the influx of hispanicsnd minorities here has made a big difference on the ground here. so we can be watching that as we continue to watch the results come in here. and he says they've had no major problems, no long lines and he expects they should be able to begin releasing those results say in the next 15 or 20 minutes here, scott. >> thank you, so cbs news estimating that nevada is now likely to go to president obama if. if that is the case, that will leave mitt romney with only three combinations of states left that could get him to the 270 necessary in order to win the presidency. you're watching ccbs news coverage of election night 2012.

hains. haines. this is a 9 news now campaign update. good evening and thank you for joining us. >> now, we have had cbs projecting that tim kaine has beat george allen in the virginia u.s. senate race. peggy fox is live where the celebration is under way but it still looks pretty close. >> reporter: anita, we have not heard a huge cheer yet. still, everybody is optimistic. many people are saying yes, we think that kaine is going to win. but it is not a shoe in for

obama by any means. six years ago jim webb unseated allen after he made a series of mistakes. perhaps a lot of voters remember that. we are going to take to more of the operatives here to find out how they are feeling about at presidential race. but they are feeling pretty good about tim kaine being the winner. back to you. >> thank you. it is still so close there. we have a winner in the sixth district in maryland where john due lainny is going win. >> and now we are live from a happy head quarters. >> reporter: it is electric

right now. right on stage you can see challenger and democratic candidates john making his acceptance speech, he is claiming victory. let's listen in. >> i am going to work as hard as i can to make a difference in your lives and help you overcome challenges. thank you and i am very committed to serving you. but at the end another day, the election was never about me and it was not about the democratic party to me. >> reporter: [ indiscernible ] why who retains his district seat which he has had since 1981. so right now john is claiming

victory on stage. back to you guys. >> all right, as we have noted, reengineered to make it a lot easier for him to win. log onto your mobile website to get more updates. >> and we'll be back with another update in half and hour. and we'll be here all night and then a full hour of 9 news at the 11:00.

>> cbs news election night coverage continues. here again is scott pelley. >> pelley: mitt romney has a small lead in the electoral vote count but it won't mean a thing if he can't get those swing states. two of them have gone to president obama tonight, wisconsin and new hampshire. we've moved nevada into the likely obama column. ohio and iowa are leaning toward the president. florida, virginia, north carolina and colorado still no projection. let's have a look at the presidential race map as it stands at this moment. mr. obama with 150-- 157 electoral votes, mr. romney with 173. 270 electoral votes

necessary to win the white house. mr. romney states are there in red, mr. o billionas in blue. the states in white are those states where we-- we are now projecting minnesota for the president. you just saw that change on your race map. we are now projecting that the president will be the winner in minnesota. that adds ten electoral votes to his count. so let's go back to the presidential race map now. and look at this new information as it just broke. mr. obama now with 167, mr. romney with 173. and again it takes 27020 win. the romney states are in red. the obama states are in blue. the white states are those where we do not have enough information to make a projection. the states in gray are the states where voters are still at the polls. now let's look at the battleground states. there were nine of them at the beginning of the evening. states that could go either

way, states that will tip the balance for one candidate or the other. so far tonight cbs news has projected that new hampshire and wisconsin will go for president obama in the other states. we do not yet have enough information to make a projection. let's look at the vote count in the largest of the battleground states. that's the state of florida with 29 electoral votes. 87% of the vote has been counted. and have a look at that. 1%-- 1 percentage point separating the two. if president obama were to win florida at this point, the election would be over. he would go over 270 electoral votes. but it looks like florida is going to be a very close race indeed. the state of ohio is the second largest of the swing states. 18 electoral votes at stake there, very close race. 60% of the vote counted. let's have a look at north carolina.

69%-- i'm sorry, 94% of the vote has been counted in north carolina. and have a look at that. president obama won north carolina in 2008 by 3/10th of a point. it looks like north carolina tonight is going to be very close for either man. moving on to the state of virginia, 69% of vote has been counted. mitt romney with a slight edge over the president in virginia. it's interesting, earlier this evening in virginia those polls were supposed to close at 7:00. but there were so many people waiting in line that they decided to keep the polls open until those lines had cleared. looking at the state of colorado, another one of the swing states, nine electoral votes, 64% of the vote has been counted. the president with a significant lead there but still quite a bit of counting to go. the state of iowa with six electoral votes, 26% of that vote has been counted.

mr. obama with a significant lead there over mitt romney. norah o'donnell, the swing states are either going or leaning in the direction of the president by and large, at least based on what we know so far. >> that's right. so it is still early yet though, we have not mate a call. and we are waiting on some of the bigger states like florida and ohio. i'm looking at the share of the electoral-- electorate. hispanics were 9% of the electorate in 2008. they broke for obama 67%. in 2012 it's up to 10 percent they're breaking for obama, by 69%. what does that mean? it means that mitt romney had his worst performance of any republican nominee among republicans since probably bob dole. there's going to be some soul searching in the republican party about how republicans are doing among the fastest growing electorate in this country. especially when the hispanic vote matters is so crucially in florida, colorado and

nevada. >> schieffer: you know, scott, people like lindsay graham, republican from south carolina, they say republicans have simply got to find some new approach to attract hispanic voters. i mean lindsay who has a color way of putting things said look, there are just that many old white men left, they're dying out, the old white man, we've got to find something to take their place here. they've got to find a way to appeal to hispanic voters. and as you just heard these things that norah has been saying here, it just isn't working for governor romney now among hispanic voters. >> pelley: joining us now from chicago is david axelrod, one of the ago tects of the president's campaign and a senior advisor to the president's campaign. mr. axelrod, what do you make of the way the swing states are moving at this moment? >> well, they're moving, scott, in the way that we anticipated. we have been saying this for some time.

the president's message is a winning message in these states. americans want an economy in which the middle class is thriving again. and they want to make those investments necessary to have that happen. they want to deal with these deficits but in a responsible way, asking the wealthy to pay a little more. that's been a winning message for the president. as has been his record. if you look at a state like ohio and the role the auto bailout played in the revival of the economy of that state, very important in tonight's vote. and then there's the matter that norah took up, the president has been a champion of finding a solution to issues like immigration and governor romney took a very, very right position on that. way out of the mainstream, on issues like women's health, took positions way out of the mainstream. you see a big gender gap tonight. so these states are moving in the way that we thought they would. it's too early to call them. but we like the patterns it that we see in these states.

>> pelley: let me just take a short pause in our interview, mr. axelrod, bear with me one second while cbs new pos projects that mitt romney will carry the state of arizona, no great surprise there. but mitt romney, cbs news now projects will carry arizona and its 11 electoral votes. now swinging back to david axelrod in chicago. you know, you are a veteran of two obama campaigns now. you were one of the architects of the 2008 campaign. i wonder, how was this campaign different from the president's first campaign? >> well, obviously it's different because the country has come through a difficult time. and we have done that together. and that changes the nature of the race to some degree via the advent of super pacs and the torrent of money that was spent against the president changed the race in certain ways. but as i look around tonight at these young people, who are very happy right now, i see the same sense of idealism that drove them to be involved in that 2008

campaign. they understand that we can do things together to build a better future, to build a better country, to change the course of matters in ways that are going to benefit the large number of americans. and that's what they want to be a part of. and it's a real pleasure to be a part of this. so this is a very joyful night here tonight. >> pelley: you know, mr. axelrod, i couldn't help but notice all the people in the room behind you are throwing on their coats and leaving at a pretty good clip. where is everybody going? >>. >> i don't know, maybe they're trying to sneak out while i'm talking to you. i have got to check on that. but i think that we're going to begin moving people because we've got a lot of traffic to move before, you know, anything happens next. we've got another event going on over at mccormick place. but we've got some matters to settle before we switch over there. >> pelley: mccormick place the site at what you hope will be a victory party

tonight. >> yes, sir, yes, sir. we're hopeful. >> pinkston: you have-- . >> pelley: you have been with the president for a long time, you have worked at the white house. i wonder if the president is re-elected tonight, how will the next four years be different from the last four? >> well, they will be different in one major way which is when he came to office the country was in an economic disaster. we were loss 800,000 jobs a month, we were mired in two wars. he's done a lot to change that. we're out of iraq, we're ending the war in afghanistan and the economy now is producing jobs instead of losing jobs. so there is a foundation now on which we can build. and i think that's an opportunity for great things in the next four years. and i think the verdict that voters render today should they hold up and should the president be re-elected will be heard not just by democrats but by republicans. people want us to work together to solve the problems of this country, to meet the great challenges and grab the opportunities of the future. and that's very much what the president is focused on.

>> pelley: david axelrod one of the architects of the president's first campaign, thank you for joining us from chicago. >> thanks for having me, scott. >> pelley: want to emphasize that it's not over until it's over. and it is certainly not over yet. things have been leaning toward the president but a lot of counting left to do. state of ohio is still out. state of florida is still out. a lot of things can happen. and this is the presidental race as it stands at this moment. in fact, mitt romney is in the lead with 184 electoral votes, we just added the 11 electoral votes from the state of arizona which we projected for mitt romney during that interview with david axelrod. the president has 167 electoral votes. you see the president's states in blue, mr. romney's in red. the white states are those where we don't have enough information yet to make a projection, the gray states are still voting. and of course as we remind you often, it takes 270 electoral votes to win.

so a good distance to go yet. now we have had hundreds of interviewers for cbs news all across the country talking to voters in every state all day long, asking them how they voted and why they voted the way that they did and anthony mason has been compiling all of that information for us. and anthony what are the voters telling us tonight. >> let's start by reviewing the nine swing states in our battleground board at this hour. florida, north carolina, virginia, all still toss-ups, ohio, iowa leaning toward the president, nevada over here likely forthe president. wisconsin and new hampshire projected for the president. if the economy was the number one issue, voters told us second most importants health care. and nearly half, 49% said they want to repeal all or some of the president's affordable care act. that of course is his health care legislation there has also been an interesting shift in the attitude toward government. four years ago more than half the voters we talked to,

51% said government should do more. this time around that number has dropped to 43%. not a good sign for the president. there is a bright spot for the president though, when asked who would do a better job handling medicare, 52% said president obama, just 45 percent for governor romney. now a lot of people thought the health-care issue would cut only against the president. these numbers suggest it's cutting both ways, scott, not quite so clear-cut. >> pelley: anthony, thank you very much. cbs news coverage of election night 2012 will continue in just a moment.

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electoral votes. governor romney with 184, 270 necessary to win. mr. romney states in red, mr. obama if blue. the white states are those states where we do not have enough information to make a projection yet. and the gray states are still voting. let's zero in on the state of ohio. state of ohio could very well be the tipping point state tonight, the one that tips the balance for one candidate or the other. we do not have enough information from our exit poll in order to make a projection but look at that, 64% of the vote has been counted. and mr. obama has a very slender lead there in ohio. our correspondent in ohio is january crawford. i shouldn't-- i should say our correspondent with the romney campaign is jan crawford. and jan, i wonder what the romney campaign is telling you about this tight, tight race in ohio. >> well, scott, of course we

spent so much time in ohio with that romney campaign it is not surprising you without say we are in ohio. and of course tonight the campaign is looking to this because the map for them has gotten narrow as you have been discussion. and they're refusing to give up. they're still looking at different data points in that state even though as you pointed out, the turnout for the president, higher in some areas and also of course with some of those early voting going now pretty strong for the president. but they are pointing to areas with strong republican turnout in some parts of the state where they're actually beating some of the margins george bush got, that was the goal. governor romney went there several times, visiting with those coal minors and stressing his energy policy. that sometimes tends to go democrat anything that part of the state it has now become a pretty strong republican area though particularly with the focus on energy. and then of course cincinnati still, just under 300 votes they are left to be count counted and they believe that will go very

strong for romney so they are looking for these rays of sunshine right now, they know ohio is all important and some of those signs coming out aren't particularly encouraging but they are finding-- let's look at florida, the biggest of the swing states, 89% of the vote has been counted. if the president wins florida it is over but florida is far from over. have a look at that. there is about 16,000 votes separating the two candidates. president obama with a slender, slender lead. 50% to 49%, florida, very hard fought. and john dickerson has been following the race for us there. john? >> in florida if you are a democrat are you very happy with the fact that president obama is doing very well with democrats down in the miami dade area. and you're even happier that in hillborough county which has picked the president in every race since 1960 except

for one time in 1992, there president obama is up 53 to 46. that's the same percentage he got in 2008. so the question is how is governor romney staying in the hunt here? why is it so close? well, he's doing well in his counties here. but if you look at these other counties which not his biggest but some of these other red counties, sump ter county is the one i like the best. it has the most seniors in that county, 45%. you see there that governor romney has gotten 67% of the vote, john mccain just got 63% of the vote, not a huge county here. but if you add up enough of those counties, that's how you have such a tight race. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. the decisive moment is coming. we will continue with our cbs news coverage of campaign 2012 in just a moment.

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>> pelley: welcome back to election night on cbs. we break in with any bulletins that we have in the presidential election. but for a moment here let's turn our attention to the other big theme of the night and that is the united states senate. republicans were very hopeful that they would be able to take control of the senate. they only needed to pick up four seats more than they had in order to take control of the senate tonight. byron pitts has been following the senate races for us. byron, how are the republicans doing? >>. >> reporter: scott, at this hour the window is all but closed now for the republican party and their effort to take control of the senate. look at our map, earlier this evening republicans told us they had to win either massachusetts, connecticut or virginia. they lost all three. in maine independent has won there but expectations are angus king will caucus with the democrats. republicans have lost in indiana, a place they thought they could win. they lost in missouri, a place they thought they could win. at this point republicans

virtually have to run the table. they have to win wisconsin, north dakota, montana, hold on to seats in nevada and arizona and win in hawaii. president obama's home state. we are look at our senate chamber again. to this point the democrats have a net gain of one seat in the senate, that means republicans now have to win five seats to take control of the senate. so scott, it's not over yet. but at this point it's all uphill for the republicans and they're wearing roller skates. >> pelley: bob schieffer, after all of the billions of dollars that have been spent on this election, it seems almost certain now that the republicans will retain control of the house and the democrats will retain control of the senate, nothing changes. >> schieffer: and what m welcome back. we are going to go to george

allens speech? richmond. >> i think it would be nice if we had a government that was on the side of [ indiscernible ] and small business owners. and those ideals did not prevail in the senate con test here in virginia. but if america is going be a comeback, we need to prevail as a whole. it may not be tomorrow, or next week, or maybe next year. but these ideas, the principles are rooted in the historic principles of the commonwealth of virginia. and ideals and principals are our hope for the future. and i say, for the positive idea, i am going to keep fighting for all of these that

we all believe in. now folks, it has been a long, and hard campaign, i want has also been a joyful one for susan and me, and also my children. i thank you all for standing strong. [ cheering and applause ] >> have met so many great people from all walks of life and every region of the area and we have been lifted up by your wards, your generosity and we have always fete your prayers. that meant the most. and from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you and the people from virginia for the kindnesses. and i can not leave here without thanks key leaders, mike